Black Gold Read online

  Wincing at the pain from rolling onto my side, I reached into my pocket to grab a thin sliver of amethyst I’d broken off of Slaski’s thaumatochalyx back at his trailer. It was maybe a sixth of what the original had been, but it would be enough. At least I hoped it would be enough.

  I popped the thing into my mouth and crunched it between my molars while opening myself up to the influx of magic. Along with the fresh infusion came an adrenaline surge that was enough to get me up onto my feet, balancing precariously on my one good leg. Using the car for support, I ignored Chase’s shouts of protest and hopped over to where Gus was pinned under the front of the car. One of the tires had run right up over his leg, and the guy was staring at it with unfocused eyes as though trying to make sense of how everything had gone so wrong so quickly.

  I didn’t give him a chance to recover. Striking swiftly and decisively, I fired a bolt of compact kinetic energy into his forehead. During a particularly dark period of experimentation, I’d modeled the lethal spell after hollow-point bullets that expanded upon contact with a soft target. Of course, I’d played with the effect, destroying crates of watermelons with a spell that would theoretically penetrate a skull before exploding to eviscerate every scrap of brain matter. I’d never used it on a live subject, but the result was devastatingly clear. Gus wouldn’t be bothering anyone ever again.

  Chase got out of the car and stood next me, looking down at the corpse. The small red entry point of my kinetic bolt was no bigger than a dime, and since it had self-cauterized, there wasn’t even any blood. If it wasn’t for his lifeless eyes staring at the ceiling, he looked like he could just be asleep.

  “Is he…?”

  I sat back on the hood of Chase’s car, suddenly overwhelmed by the pain in my leg as the excitement of the moment melted away, leaving me burnt out and hollow. “Yeah,” I said with a wince as I tried to find a comfortable position. “His brain should be a puddle of goo. He was strong, but there’s not much he could have done to save himself.”

  “Should we maybe make sure?”

  I looked over at Chase. His thoughts were easy enough to read. People who commanded magic the way Gus did had a nasty habit of not being nearly as dead as they appeared. If there was a body left to be reanimated through some back-up charm or latent spell, there was no way of being absolutely certain they were out of the picture. I’d already made the toughest decision when I’d fired the lethal spell into his brain in the first place, so the rest was just a formality. Besides, it was never a great idea to leave bodies with mysterious head trauma lying around for the local authorities to stumble onto.

  I nodded once, and Chase helped me into the car. He backed us out of the house, the front left corner of the car bouncing awkwardly when he rolled back off Gus’s body. When we were far enough away, he cut the engine and helped me back out again. Using him as a support, I hobbled all the way back to the house. I wanted to be sure I was close enough to make sure the first gouts of flame I conjured landed on Gus’s corpse. Only when I saw his clothing burn and the skin on his face blister and peel, did we move backwards so I could send a few targeted bursts of flame through the lower story windows. It wasn’t mage fire, so it wouldn’t burn uncontrollably no matter what the firemen did when they arrived, but it would still reduce the house and everything inside it to ash in a hurry.

  Chase and I stood there a moment, heat and smoke blasting our faces when the wind shifted in our direction. We didn’t speak. Chase still needed another healer, though the hermitess’s work had mended his injuries to the point where a regular doctor could have taken over. Still, doctors asked questions. The kinds of questions we couldn’t afford to answer. My leg was pretty fucked up, but it wasn’t life-threatening. Chase kept some heavy duty painkillers in the car if I needed them, but I planned to do everything in my power to avoid using them, even if it meant sobbing from the pain all the way back to Vancouver.

  When we finally did get in the car and drive away, I didn’t look back. Chase had questions, I knew. I myself only had a rough idea of what Gus had done to lure someone like me to the area, using Slaski and the hermitess to weaken my strength before he consumed the essence of power, something so forbidden among my kind it was death to be suspected of it. In my world, that made him a monster. And monsters didn’t have any rights to a fair trial. When it came to dealing with people like Gus, there was only one way of putting an end to the trail of death they left in their wake.

  At least, that’s what I’d tell myself over and over again, hoping desperately that one day I actually believed it.

  Afterword

  I hope you had as much fun reading this little side adventure as I did writing it! After the first publication of Black Ice in 2017, I had a pretty tough go of things in my personal life. The idea of picking back up with the Black Records novel that had been interrupted was too daunting, so I sat down and began writing what became this novella. Black Gold helped me step out of the funk that extenuating circumstances had brought crashing down on me, reinvigorating me on writing again. Once I’d wrapped a first draft of this, I was able to hop back into Black Arts and then write a draft of Black & Tan. Both of those books are in final revisions, and will be available for sale over the next few months!

  Special thanks to Sev and the VGW regulars who helped me get my writing back on track. And as always, thank you, my reader friends! You’re the reason I do this.

  Fun Fact: Boston Bar is a real town and the Pig’s Ear Saloon is an actual restaurant! Though, I’ve never actually eaten there. Maybe it’s time for a road trip?

  - Alexis Blakely, March ‘20

  THE NEW BLACK

  Thanks for reading Black Market! If you enjoyed it, consider signing up for my mailing list. As thanks for staying connected, I’ll send you a free copy of The New Black, the prequel to Black Magic and the Black Records series.

  Visit alexisblakely.com/mailing-list to sign up and get your free copy of The New Black prequel novella. Available exclusively to subscribers.

  Continue Reading:

  If this is your first entry point to Alex Black and the Black Records, you can continue the story with either the free prologue novella sent to all newsletter subscribers, or by diving into book one of the series, Black Magic:

  Buy it on Amazon: Black Magic

  About the Author

  Alex Blakely is a pen name. The author behind the pen lives in Vancouver, BC, where they’re trying to juggle parenting a preschooler with writing new books in the Black Records series.

  www.alexisblakely.com